You'll protest your Complicity

today i gave back.

i didn't really know what i was signing up for when i told my wife "sure." unload some boxes. move things. community service.

after breakfast, we went to the place where my wife and i, and some of her coworkers were to meet to do our volunteer community service.

the war veteran's museum.

from there, we went to the military reserve building, to unload food, clothing, sleeping bags, toiletries, and coats so that the 200 or so homeless veterans that operation stand down is expecting to show up tomorrow will be able to take them when they leave.

we were five of probably 100 to 150 volunteers. people from the community. active duty folks representing all branches of the armed forces. retired military. veterans, proudly wearing their pow/mia hats, their "vietnam vet" tshirts, limping as they walked from organizing tshirts to the table of socks.

i served. yeah, my service was mostly selfish. i needed a job. i needed money for college.

part of my job was to sit in a comfy office chair, behind a large desk, and tell elderly gentlemen who had been shot at, wounded possibly, serving their country that while i appreciated, beyond my ability to convey, what they had done for their country, and for me; that their country no longer gave a shit about them. not in so many words, of course. i liked my job. i wanted to hang onto it. but that is what it boiled down to, o my beloved non-existant readers. as a country, we no longer give a shit.

but i give a shit.

i love my country. of course, it is fucked up. i know. maybe all too well, actually. but i still love it. it is my country. it is my home. it isn't any better than anyone else's country, and i would proudly stand respectfully as another country's national anthem is played. but this is my country. it's my country because those men and women who will walk into the armory tomorrow and wait for a hand out went to foriegn soil. because they, and the people before them, believed in this country. believed in what it stands for.

and now they find themselves in need of new underwear. new socks. warm sleeping bags. a poncho to keep the rain off. someone who still gives a shit.

and, o beloved non-existants, my faithful few who still swing around, i am proud to say, with tears in my eyes:

i give a shit.

and:

thank you.

darth sardonic